


Avengers Assemble! Or how Stark Made Coulson Hate his Job for a Month

by ThaFost



Series: Cartoons Make Everything Better [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThaFost/pseuds/ThaFost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony gets an idea to sell the rights to an Avengers cartoon. Normally this shouldn't affect Coulson... but Fury decides it does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avengers Assemble! Or how Stark Made Coulson Hate his Job for a Month

Phil’s nightmares start when he reads a newspaper boasting: _Stark Sells Rights to Avengers Cartoon._ It becomes increasingly hectic when he’s called in first thing to Fury’s office, and informed he’s been assigned as liaison to the show, which included keeping Barton and Romanov’s names off the table as much as he could. Their television identities were ridiculously bad. Natalie Rushman and Christopher Barker, who couldn’t see through that? Well, Phil had to concede that it was marketed to preteen boys.

That’s never how it turns out.

At the first round table meeting, Phil introduces himself, and the writers look to him with dewy eyes of wonder and he resist the urge to pee himself in fear to get out of the assignment. Fury would just send him back. “As official liaison from SHIELD, I am the only named figure you’re allowed to use. Other characters not based off of real people may be substituted.”

“What other figures of real people may we use associated with the avengers? We know a little about--”

Phil cuts them off, and pulls out a list of names. “You may use, Tony Stark, James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Bruce Banner as the Hulk, Natalie Rushman as Black Widow, Christopher Barker as Hawkeye, Steve Rogers as Captain America, Bucky Barnes as himself in flashbacks, and you may use anyone from Norse mythology, they exist. You may also use me.”

One of the writers looks a little perturbed. “That’s not a lot of female characters.”

“The additional women I talked to did not wish to be apart of this.” Betty had declined graciously, but Jane Foster had thrown things. “I’m sorry to give you a poor gender balance, but one of my superiors is a woman. In case you want to imagine her up and make your own assumptions with no further input or credit to me.”

“Well, we want a little romance in the show...” The head writer nods in agreement before looking at the list Phil had.

“Do we have rights to adapt people as needed?”

“I guess... as long as it isn’t defamatory.”

“Then can your character be a woman?”

Phil pauses carefully a moment.

“If I say yes, you must promise me that if you are using me for romantic angles that I am told nothing.”

The writers confer for a moment, before nodding in agreement. The ball gets rolling, and it’s not too long before Phil finds himself metaphorically stepping in it.

He didn’t meant it to come out, it just did. “Captain America’s a great man, even if we got started a little shaky.” The writers leapt on that line, and he was forced to retell the quinjet scene word for word.

“I mean I was present while you were unconscious.”

“Then what happened?”

“I got stabbed to nearly death right before the Battle for New York. My boss lied and said I was dead, and the Avengers went and kicked the aliens back to wherever. I convalesced and then I got to see the team again.”

“Oh.” One of the writers says a little wistfully. “Did Captain America watch you while you were sleeping?”

“Not that he told me.”

They plan a whole lot of fake adventures for them to have together before the battle of New York which would be an epic season finale, but he wasn’t sure if he was going to get stabbed or not. Or rather if Carla was. After a few meetings the writers have a feel for their characters and they can stop pulling Phil off of his duties.

The next nightmare comes with the premiere of the show. Once again a trip is made to Fury’s office, and Phil sits quietly as the man tries to find words for his assignment. “As you know the show, and you know being a fan... you will need to keep a track of the fanfiction.”

Phil feels himself pale. “Excuse me sir?”

“Don’t read it all. Just make sure none of the SHIELD agents are rewriting Barton and Romanov’s missions as fanfiction. Read summaries. Get a feel. And Coulson?”

“Yessir?”

“Why are you a thin lithe woman named Carla?”

“Romance sir. They wanted romance.”

“Is that going to complicate matters?”

“I had no hand in who they picked, and I don’t think I gave them any ideas.” Phil paused. “Except for when I told them how I met Captain America.”

“You’re pretty ballsy Coulson.”

Phil squirmed in his seat, he really hoped he didn’t have to see anything too terrible. “If that’s all Fury?” His boss waves him away, and Phil sets out to see how many pieces of fanfiction he has to go through. Five hundred later, he has three agents sent to Fury’s office. The real tip off had been the fact that they had a ‘Genderswap Coulson’ named Phil. His name wasn’t in the credits of the show, so the only way for so many to hit on his real name was acquired knowledge. They were chastised, but their fics hadn’t really compromised SHIELD’s safety or top secret nature, as they had been mostly low level fluff fics.

He had accidentally uncovered a horrendous shipwar involving himse--- Carla. Apparently the fans were fighting over whether his, rather, her feelings for Captain America were shallow or if her normally calm exterior would pair up well with Bruce. It was tedious slogging through them, and he had to continue to do so until the show was cancelled in the future.

Then he discovered it had it’s own kinkmeme and he had to wash away the shame with several stiff drinks... after he had posted on it.

A month later, Fury had relented quoting it as a complete waste of time, and Phil got to slip back into his regular habits.

He resisted getting a set of action figures for himself, it would just be silly. Until Tony announces the proceeds are being donated to orphanages around the world, and that sets of the action figures would be sent as well.

Then he just couldn’t stop himself, even if he only got Carla and not himself. But then life goes back to it’s normally event packed pace. He forgets all about the show, until the first season boxset shows up, signed by all the writers he had met. Setting it on the shelf, he tells himself he’ll watch it later.

Much, much later.


End file.
